pope francis on ideology and faith

In a recent homily, Pope Francis said a few things that kind of spoke to me. The whole sermon is really interesting, but this quote grabbed me. 


“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought…"








You can read the rest here.

h/t to zach

nouwen on alarmist tendencies

I needed to read this. Maybe you do, too. From Henri Nouwen, here:



Standing Under the Cross

Standing erect, holding our heads high, is the attitude of spiritually mature people in face of the calamities of our world.   The facts of everyday life are a rich source for doomsday thinking and feeling.   But it is possible for us to resist this temptation and to stand with self-confidence in this world, never losing our spiritual ground, always aware that "sky and earth will pass away" but the words of Jesus will never pass away (see Luke 21:33).

Let us be like Mary, the mother of Jesus, who stood under the cross, trusting in God's faithfulness notwithstanding the death of his beloved Child.

nouwen on broader vocation

I'm reading a Nouwen book on discernment and what the process looks like. It's rich stuff, but this is no surprise.

Lately I have felt inexplicably overwhelmed. Certainly being overly tired, having a toddler at home 24/7, and running a little low on funds has something to do with it. But it's felt almost like there's some sort of block against me being able to get as much done as I'd like. It's been frustrating to feel so easily incapacitated. Mama needs a nap.

It's felt a little tough lately. I didn't work for most of June because of some health concerns, and July has been very low-paying as a result. Things will pick back up in August, but if I'm not able to find a way to get more sleep, I will just be burning the candle at both ends. We're in the throes of potty training and it is not going "well" if "well" is defined as "learned quickly," so I spend a LOT more time cleaning than I would prefer (but the alternative of going back to diapers makes the trade-off worth it, in my opinion). Tell any single mama who is at home all day with a toddler that she "shouldn't be this stressed" and just see if she doesn't go ballistic on you; that said, on paper there doesn't seem to be much of a good reason for me to feel as close to the edge as I do. The question "how could this possibly be the right thing to be doing?" keeps me up at night. Something isn't working right.

Turns out, it was me all along.

The other day, surrounded by three dogs and one naked toddler, I snatched a few minutes to lie on the couch and read a couple of pages in the Nouwen book. And what I found was exactly what I needed to hear:


What I learned from testing a call in Latin America is that my broader vocation is simply to enjoy God's presence, do God's will, and be grateful wherever I am. The question of where to live and what to do is really insignificant compared to the question of how to keep the eyes of my heart focused on the Lord. I can be teaching at Yale, working in the bakery at the Genesee Abbey, walking with poor children in Peru, or writing a book, and still feel totally useless. Or I can do these same things and know that I am fulfilling my call. There is no such thing as the right place or the right job. I can be miserable or joyful, restless or at peace, in all situations. 


I've been getting too caught up in the notion of "the right place" or "the right thing to do" and measuring myself according to some standard that not only is not realistic, but is entirely self-directed. I've got to cut myself some slack and be realistic about my situation -- the good, the bad, and the temporary. I've also got to start getting to bed at a decent hour. And it's time to get back into morning prayer for sure.

I'm no less tired than I was, but I feel more calmed. The panic and perpetual frustration are starting to subside as my heart gets refocused. Yes, with God's help, I can do this.

Let this be a reminder. Kyrie eleison.

nouwen on solitude

Several times in the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to reflect on this brief passage from Nouwen. (Remember how dreamy he is?) There were times, when I first started going to my new church, that my priest was a real friend to me in the sense that Nouwen describes. There have been other times when I've been able to offer this type of friendship to someone else, as well. I do think there's something special about sitting in silence with someone. It speaks to me of total acceptance.



Sharing Our Solitude

A friend is more than a therapist or a confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness.

A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer.  A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon.  With a friend we don't have to say or do something special.  With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.

nouwen on forgiveness

Some stuff converged, my tired brain sputtered into gear, and I'm now on kind of a theology kick (in case the Bonhoeffer stuff didn't give that away). Part of my self-imposed theology overdose is a subscription to the daily meditation from the Henri Nouwen society. Each morning -- or maybe it's just weekday mornings...quite frankly, I'm too tired to notice -- I get a little email with a piece of Nouwen in it. 

Have you read much Henri Nouwen? He's like totally dreamy. My friend Angie introduced him to me several years ago when I was going through a particularly rough patch, and he's been one of my besties ever since. He's always got something new and relevant to add, and he does it in a way that challenges you without scolding you or coddling you. You should meet him. Here, I'll introduce you! This is what he told me the other day: 

Healing Our Memories

Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.

Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories.

See what I mean? Dreamy. And now I shall add my clunky thoughts and ruminations on my own navel.

Forgiveness is not something I think about often. It's one of those things that comes fairly easily to me, I think. Relationships are important to me, and I don't often find it hard to set aside past hurts, accept apologies, and move forward, restored. I do this maybe to a fault, becoming permissive and even complicit in really bad behavior, but ultimately my particular ability to forgive is something I see as a gift, and something for which I often thank God. Unforgiveness is destructive -- I've witnessed it, firsthand. It's destroyed families, it's ended friendships that once brought joy, and it killed my marriage. 

Divorce goes hand-in-hand with unforgiveness. Unwillingness to forgive is what often leads to the decision to divorce, and then as two people move through the divorce process they tend to dredge up old pain and inflict new wounds. It's just part of the process. Two people make vows, and then one or both of them breaks those vows. The act of divorce, in itself, creates a wound; bad behavior and clouded judgment just worsen it.

As I was reading about forgiveness, I entertained this brief thought of "I'm so glad I don't struggle with this. I don't need to forgive anyone -- I've already done it." Come on, Ashley. And then it hit me: I haven't forgiven myself for my divorce.

I don't really cry over my marriage anymore. Really the only time I get particularly emotional is when I think about my son, and how this divorce will affect him for the rest of his life. Being divorced feels like a failure -- specifically it feels like I've failed Gabriel, in the biggest of ways, before he was even born. It's been a hard thing to get past.

As I tried to share the depth of this feeling to a new friend the other day, I was met with encouragement. I don't remember the exact words (self-loathing makes it hard to hear, sometimes) but the message was something like this: "You aren't a failure. You're a person who's had some bad things happen, and look where you are now." And that's something I apparently needed to hear, judging by how it reached me. But there was something more, something left unaddressed. This little bit from Nouwen showed me what.

"We no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over." 

Divorce isn't what I wanted, and because of that, it's felt like getting divorced is something that "happened to me" instead of something I specifically did. There's a deep feeling of failure in that. Maybe it's the sense of powerlessness that comes from being divorced. Maybe it has to do with my ultimate failure of choosing a partner*. Either way, feeling like a victim -- in this case, of my own stupidity -- is hand-in-hand with feeling like a failure.

But if I take all of three seconds to look around, it becomes obvious that I'm not a failure.  My son is healthy. He is happy. He's growing and engaging and he even pees on the potty occasionally (a fact I managed not to share with my friend at dinner but have not managed to excise from this blog post). I keep both of us fed, and 98% of the time it's not junk food. I dredge up enough work each month to get the bills paid. We have a small but beautiful place to live that is slowly...slowly...becoming our home.

Clearly I am not a failure. 

"Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts."

Now I've got some work to do.

Have you ever been surprised by how hard it was to forgive someone or something? Is reconciliation important to you, or would you rather just cut and run? Who's your favorite theologian/philosopher/great thinker?


*Some people have criticized me for marrying so quickly, but the truth as far as I can see it is that we could have dated for years and I still would have chosen him -- the things that would have been red flags to me were a direct result of marriage and probably wouldn't have shown up beforehand. Maybe he would have chosen differently, but I don't know. We were both poor judges back then. 

bonhoeffer: thoughts on creation

From last Wednesday's entry in the Bonhoeffer book:

IN MILLIONS OF YEARS OR IN INDIVIDUAL DAYS

When the Bible speaks of six days of creation, it may well have thought of a day as consisting of a morning and a night, yet it may not have meant the day literally, but may have thought of it as the power of the day that makes the physical ay what it is, as the natural dialectic of creation. When the Bible speaks of "day" here, the discussion does not concern the physical problem at all. It does not matter to biblical thought whether creation happened in rhythms of millions of years or in individual days; we have no reason to value the latter or to doubt the former. But the question as such does not concern us. There is no doubt that the biblical author, to the extent that his words are human words, was subject to his time, his knowledge, and his limitations -- nor is there any doubt that through these words only God himself is speaking to us of his creation. The daily works of God are the rhythms in which creation occurs. 

p. 24 (not an affiliate link)
Your thoughts? Here are some of mine:

I agree. As I grew up in a pretty conservative evangelical Christian environment (church, school, home to a lesser extent) I was told, again and again, that God created the world in six literal days, that anyone who said otherwise was misguided at best and was waging a war against Christians at worst, and if I were ever to doubt the six day thing, it was a slippery slope from these minor doubts about biblical inerrancy into a murky pit of sin and Liberal Christian-ness that would make God weep and jeopardize my soul.

I bought this, for a while. I don't buy it anymore. These days, I more or less hold the stories in scripture lightly. I accept them at face value, knowing it's possible that all these thousands of years and how many transcriptions and translations later, maybe the words aren't exactly the same as they were, and maybe there's some context missing, and maybe there's more to the story than what appears on the page. The God I believe in -- the one I understand to be present in the bible and today -- is certainly capable of creating the world in 6 days, creating man from dust, and bringing a baby to a virgin. Maybe he did, but maybe he didn't and maybe the creation story is a giant metaphor. But this is not the essential matter on which my faith hinges, and I am willing to accept the ambiguity.

And now it's your turn. Am I a loon and Bonhoeffer a heretic for suggesting that creation wasn't six literal days? Or maybe we are loons and heretics for suggesting that creation DID occur in six literal days. What are your thoughts?